Heroes of Might and Magic® 4: Complete

I remember the game when it came out. After playing HOMM3 for so long, this game was a shock! Everything was different, the graphics was too colorful/plastic. The soundtrack wasn't as good. The neutral armies on the map moved? What the heck?! I forgot about the game for a few months at least and then picked it up after a long while, gave it a shot again and I finally got how the new gameplay systems work. After playing some of the campaigns I really fell in love with the story-telling and the soundtrack too. The hero leveling and skill system was a hell of a lot of fun. Ocasionally I return to this game and play a few maps, while I don't ever play HOMM3 anymore. The visuals of the 4th game have stood the test of time actually, in my opinion it looks good even by todays standards. Unfortunately the game has an issue with crashing in battles on windows 10 (I've seen some reviewers mention it) but that can be fixed by setting CPU affinity in the task manager (there's a guide somewhere in the forums). This game is I think less of a strategy when compared to the other games in the series. I play it like an RPG game, I mostly level up heroes until they can obliterate anything in their path, without taking any troops. It's a different breed than the other HOMM games for sure, but still highly enjoyable.

This game is amazing. While the story seems a little weak, the strategy of Hereo management is totally worth it. Having a top tier Illusionist with a mid level priest hereo with some large characters can literally dominate the map if you get to that point. Yes your heroe can die, but that is compensated by having as many heroes as you want in an army. I love the battle system with simulataneous hitting, making different abilities such as first strike very useful. Having first strike on an unlimited retaliation unit is just so satisfying. Further, the caravan system is an absolute amazing contribution to HMM. Having quicker reinforcements, and now only having to move only 2-3 heroes instead of 6-7 heroes in a late game large map is really really useful, and makes the game less of a headache. Yes it is different than HMM3, but it is better and more replayable, which is saying a lot since HMM3 was a phenomenal game.

It was my first homm game, so from my point of view it's the other games in the series that are strange. By the way, if game doesn't work correctly for you on newest windows 11, you may want to look for "HoMMIV Wrapper v.1.4.9" (it's free), there will be some .dll file you need to put into game directory and it should then work fine.

The most fantastic game of my childhood. I miss the moments I spent playing this game.

This game was released right before the bankruptcy of the developer. While they tried, they didnt manage to balance the game perfectly out and some things remained sketchy. A lot of people complain that it is far removed from Heroes III. While that is true, there are some notable changes, heroes being able to participate on the battlefield, armies moving without heroes, enemy stacks moving around. Still, I enjoyed it a lot for what it was and applaud the developer for trying to advance the genre and franchise and not just add more fluff. It It is a good game in its own right and regarding balance issues there should be a fan made patch to address these. Try it out, its a lot of fun.